


Stolen Sweets

by itslaurenmae, merrymegtargaryen



Category: The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Courtly Love, Dessert & Sweets, F/M, First Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26715412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itslaurenmae/pseuds/itslaurenmae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/merrymegtargaryen
Summary: Two people, two stolen moments.
Relationships: Anne Neville Queen of England/Richard III of England
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Lauren convinced me to write this oneshot, and then I convinced her to write the sequel to it, because that's what friends do. 
> 
> Enjoy!

While the lords and ladies of court are eating, drinking, dancing, and gossiping, two children snatch tostees from the table of sweets and dash out of the feast hall and into the wide corridor. Richard ducks into the alcove first, twisting around to peer behind them as Anne slips in beside him.

“Do you think they saw?” she asks, leaning out to look.

“No. I don’t think anybody is paying attention to us.”

That isn’t unusual; as the younger children, Richard and Anne have long since accepted that they will forever stand in the shadows of their older siblings. It’s one of the many things Anne likes about Richard; he understands what it’s like to be a younger sibling, to always be a second thought. As much as Anne loves her sister, Izzy will never understand what it’s like. Even now Izzy is dancing with a knight who looks at her as if he cannot believe she is real. No one will ever look at Anne that way.

Richard turns back to Anne, giving her a mischievous smile. She smiles back, and at the same time, they bite into their tostees. Hers is sweet, the toast and powdered sugar softening the bite of the candied ginger and the spiced wine.

“Good?”

“Delicious,” she tells him, swallowing. “I haven’t had tostees since Christmas. Do you remember?”

“Yes; Madge burned the first batch, and with the second batch, she forgot—“

“The ginger,” Anne finishes, laughing. “The third batch was alright.”

“It was better than alright; they tasted so much sweeter because we’d had to wait so long for them!”

“These are sweet, too.” She takes another bite. “Do you like her?” she asks suddenly.

“Who? The queen?” When she nods, he shrugs. “I don’t know. We haven’t really spoken beyond the usual pleasantries.”

“Father hates her,” Anne confides.

“I know. He wanted Edward to marry the French princess. The Woodvilles are a Lancastrian family. Or they were.”

“And commoners.”

“Not quite commoners, but not quite noble, either. Hold on,” he says suddenly, and reaches forward. Anne freezes, face turning red as Richard’s thumb gently brushes her nose. “Sugar,” he explains, holding up his thumb.

“Oh. Thank you,” Anne says awkwardly.

Richard licks the sugar from his thumb. “It gets everywhere. Maybe we should have chosen a different sweet.”

“Oh, but I like tostees best,” she declares, taking another bite.

“We’ll have to beat your dress like a carpet,” Richard says, smiling; when she looks down, she sees that white flecks of sugar are indeed running down the front of her pretty velvet dress.

A voice comes from the corridor. “Anne?”

“Mother,” Anne whispers, eyes widening in fear. Her mother had told her not to eat overmuch today and not to make a mess of her clothes; she won’t be happy to see Anne like this.

“We have two options, Lady Anne,” Richard says, holding out his hand. “We can either surrender…or retreat.”

“A York never surrenders,” Anne declares, taking his hand. Their fingers are sticky from candied ginger and powdered sugar, but they hold fast as they bolt out of the alcove and in the opposite direction of the Countess of Warwick.

“Anne!” the countess shouts, but Anne and Richard pelt down the corridor, knowing the countess is too dignified to give chase.

It is only when they are out of sight that she smiles. “Incorrigible, the both of them,” she hums, turning back to rejoin the festivities. She will scold Anne later, but her heart will not really be in it. For now, let Anne have her stolen sweets.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s years later, another banquet, another celebration for King Edward and his Queen, Elizabeth. They’d welcomed their first son, and everyone was elated. Their daughters, three bright girls, are beautiful, no doubt - golden-haired like their parents, their laughter brassy and warm, cheeks red and rosy. Anne was beginning to get annoyed at their noise when she noticed Richard by the desserts.

He’s broader now, but his eyes are still the same. Dark and serious, even in the midst of the merriment, but instead of finding him sullen, Anne had found in him a kindred spirit. Courtly life was often too much for her, so much pageantry and putting-on, and she knew Richard had always felt the same. 

Richard caught her looking at him, and Anne couldn’t help but smile when her eyes met his. He’s familiar in this room full of new faces, young and old. She can’t help but walk toward him, feeling a pull of something quiet and serene in the midst of the brash chaos of the surrounding merriment. Richard’s always been her kind of quiet.

“It’s so loud,” Anne said, stopping to stand next to him. 

“What?” 

The musicians had started up a jaunty tune, the scuffle of dancers on the floor and giggles from the children all jumbled together. Anne took a step closer. “It’s too loud,” she repeated, head turned into his shoulder. 

“Yes.” Richard cleared his throat and nodded down at the table. “Do you see what I see?” 

Anne’s eyes lit up. “Yes.” 

Tostees. Just one of them. Left forgotten on a crumb-strewn platter. 

“Shall we?”

“Yes.”

A moment later, they slipped out of the room, pilfered tostee in Richard’s hand, covered by a cloth napkin.

“Do you think anyone noticed?” Anne asked, sitting down on the windowsill. They’d snuck into this alcove many times before, to share food, secrets, stories. 

“What, that we took the last tostee, or that we left?” Richard sat down next to her and unfolded the napkin. 

“That we left.” 

Richard quirked an eyebrow and Anne smiled back. “You know they didn’t.” 

Of course they didn’t.

This was a shared secret, one they’d had for years. As long as she could remember, they’d been stealing tostees and sneaking out of banquets, just him and her. No George or Izzy or Edward, no tutors, no horse masters or priests or parents. Just Richard, just Anne. 

Richard picked up the tostee and raised it to Anne, keeping his hand underneath it. 

“So you don’t ruin your dress like last time,” he said, and lifted the sweet cake to her lips. 

Their knees were touching, and he was looking directly at her, narrowing his gaze as if to ask for permission, his dark eyes warm. Knowing and knowable.

Speechless, she nodded and opened her mouth. At the first touch of the sweet cake to her lips, she closed her eyes. She couldn’t help it, she’d always loved the taste of the cinnamon, the sharp little pop of ginger, the brush of powdered sugar. She breathed it in, and even though it wasn’t warm still, it was delicious. Comforting. 

“Mmm.” She hummed, happy to have this familiar thing, this quiet pleasure. To be sharing it with Richard.

She heard him sigh and smile, a small release of an exhale before she opened her eyes and met his again. A flush of color rose to her cheeks, but she didn’t try to hide it or look away.

“Still good?” 

“Still good,” she grinned, swallowing the last bit of her bite.

Richard lifted the tostee back up to her again, wordlessly offering another bite, but Anne shook her head. “You next. We’ll share.”

Richard kept his hand under the piece of bread and craned over to take his own bite, no doubt trying to keep powdered sugar from falling onto his trousers. “You’re right,” he said, still chewing. “It is still good, even if it’s not hot.” 

He’d still gotten crumbs on his pants. Anne reached over and took the napkin off of his knee and brushed them to the ground. “Shhh,” she grinned and giggled. “Our secret.”

They sat like that for a bit, sharing bites of the sweet cake. He’d lift it for her, keeping his hand under it as she ate, and she shooed the crumbs that fell on his knee to the floor. The sounds of music and merriment from the banquet room felt further and further away while they ate, back and forth until one bite remained.

“It’s all yours,” he said, lifting it to her a final time. Anne opened her mouth and he popped the last bit in, his fingertip brushing her bottom lip. A new rush of heat rose to her cheeks, and she’d never felt so warm or full or happy. 

He didn’t move his fingers away immediately, and a long moment passed as they looked at each other, hardly blinking, hardly even breathing. 

“Anne.” He lifted her chin with his thumb, finger still steady on her lip.

“Yes?” Her breath caught in her throat.

The next thing she knew, Richard was kissing her, his lips lowered on hers, warm and sweet and safe. He brought his hand to her cheek then, cupped her face and ran his thumb across her cheekbone. She didn’t want to close her eyes, wanted to take in everything about him at that moment - note the stray curl that sat at his brow, memorize the freckles that dusted the top of his cheekbones - but his kiss was so sweet, she couldn’t help but breathe him in. As her eyes fell shut, she hummed, happy, pleased. He must have taken that as encouragement, for he deepened the kiss, sunk his mouth more fully onto her bottom lip. She was still holding the napkin in her right hand.

She raised her own hands to hold Richard’s face between them, napkin fluttering to the floor, forgotten. He parted her lips with his tongue then, tasting just a little bit like ginger and honey and cinnamon. It was all so sweet and new and yet, so familiar. 

The sound of music swelled into the air as the banquet doors were thrown open by a pair of servants. They pulled away from each other at the noise, knees still touching, red in their cheeks and the taste of sugar on their tongues. 

“Oh.” Anne realized she’d dropped the napkin. As she leaned down to pick it up, Richard did the same. Their hands touched, and before she could register it, he’d picked up the napkin with his other hand and laced his fingers through hers. 

They’d held hands many times before - sticky from a shared treat, running from her mother or Edward or whoever’d been charged with watching the children at banquets when they’d been small - but it felt like the first time. She lifted their clasped hands to her mouth. 

“Richard.” A kiss on his hand. “My sweet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to Meg for getting me into The White Queen so we can cry about this pairing together! And thank you, lovely human person, for reading this.


End file.
